This is for all of you, interested in European herps!

Here´s a tip..

Join my forum!

It´s a forum for people interested and dedicated to the keeping and breeding of European reptiles and amphibians, outdoors and indoors. Some very competent people are members, and an easy going atmosphere makes it easy to get answers.

It also have a photoarea, fieldherping, classifieds, show / expodates and a lot of more..

There is a couple of hidden areas too, that you can not see unless you are logged on.

Some stats:  Started in April 2005. Total posts 3859 • Total topics 832 • Total members 153, and growing by the day!!

Here is the link to the Terrarium Morbidum Forum – THE forum for European reptiles and amphibians.

Pictured: The glowing frog who wanted a light snack and swallowed a Christmas bulb

Something was making this little fellow feel all warm inside.

Unfortunately for him, it was a blinking fairy light.

The Cuban tree frog managed to swallow an entire bulb as he hunted for bugs.

Photographer James Snyder, whose Florida garden is festooned with lights, spotted it all lit up in a mango tree.

Colourful calories: The Cuban tree frog took a gulp of the bulb and wouldn't let go

James, who lives in Palm Beach, Florida, had decorated his back yard with colourful lights after noticing that frogs had worked out lights attracted bugs.

But one night he discovered that one of the little beasts had bitten off far more than it could chew.

James, 29, said: ‘A bug landed on the bulb and when the frog went for it he got a little bit extra.

‘I zoomed in and noticed that the wire was actually going into the frogs mouth, he had swallowed the entire light, he wasn’t sitting on it at all’

‘I have a large mango tree by my patio and my wife and I have Christmas lights wrapped around the trunk and main limbs to light it up from underneath.

‘I took my dog out back when I noticed the frog glowing on the tree and at first I thought that the frog was sitting on top of the light.

‘I quickly put my dog back inside and grabbed my camera, but I was convinced that he would be gone by the time I returned but when I got back he was still sitting there glowing away.

‘I began taking a few pictures from about four or five feet away because I did not want to scare him and make him move.

‘I zoomed in and noticed that the wire was actually going into the frogs mouth, he had swallowed the entire light, he wasn’t sitting on it at all.’

James, 29, said he feared the frog had been killed after it ate the bulb.

He said: ‘I figured that he must be dead and because there was no fear of spooking him I got very close and continued taking pictures.

‘But after few minutes I noticed one of his legs had moved, death spasm I thought for a second until he repositioned his entire body.

‘Now with the realisation that the frog was indeed alive I wanted to keep him that way.

‘So I fired off a few more shots, then gently grabbed the wire next to the bulb and slowly pulled it out for his mouth.

Because the wire was still attached to the light, Snyder was able to pull it gently from the frog’s mouth.

It seemed none the worse for its ordeal – apart from instantly losing its glow.

From Dailymail.co.uk

Three Hawaii residents reach finals of international frog art contest

Contest Aims To Create Awareness of Worldwide Frog Extinctions

Three Hawaiians have a chance at being crowned the Grand Prize Winner of the 1st Annual Frog Art Contest. The contest, which is being held by SAVE THE FROGS! Nonprofit Organization, received entries from 10 countries worldwide.

Twelve year old Tokino Springer and fifteen year old Liann Cagle of Kapolei Middle School, as well as their art teacher Daryle Mishina have made it to the finals of the contest.

The Grand Prize Winner will be decided by the public, and votes are currently being accepted through the SAVE THE FROGS! website (www.savethefrogs.com).

Frog populations worldwide have been declining at unprecedented rates, and nearly one-third of the world’s 6,500 amphibian species are threatened with extinction. Up to 200 species have already completely disappeared. The Frog Art Contest is intended to raise awareness of the rapid disappearance of frog species.

“The amphibian extinction crisis is one of the most significant environmental issues of our time” says Dr. Kerry Kriger, who heads SAVE THE FROGS!. “The goal of the Frog Art Contest is to get artists involved in environmental conservation, and to provide teachers with fun ways to increase their students’ interest in frogs.”

Dr. Kriger encourages all art lovers to view this year’s entries and to vote for their favorite frog art. A call for entries for the 2nd Annual Frog Art Contest will go out in early March of 2010, just prior to Save The Frogs Day.

Contest voting is taking place at:

http://savethefrogs.com/artists/2009-winners.html

From Honolulu advertiser.

Digital Camera Photographer of the Year Competition 2009.

Just a little connected to reptiles..

I have for reasons unknown, entered this competition, and would be grateful if you all would like to have a look at my pictures and vote for one or more of them.

Just follow the link below, please.

http://poty2009.dcmag.co.uk/userGallery.aspx?UserId=b601f147-a490-493b-af23-1d10de06a87f

“Spider-Man lizard” (Mwanza Flat Headed Agama)

Demand for a striking blue and red lizard has surged among comic fans thanks to its uncanny resemblance to Spiderman. Pet shops specialising in exotic animals have reported a surge in popularity for the Mwanza Flat Headed Agama lizard, which is native to Africa. Karen Baker, of amphibian and reptile specialist store Exotic-pets.co.uk, said that the lizards, which live for up to 15 years, had currently sold out.

"Spider-Man lizard" (Mwanza Flat Headed Agama)

 

She said: ‘People are drawn to them because of their unusual colourings.
‘These lizards usually live in groups with one dominant male who is usually the most colourful.
‘We should have another batch of these lizards available in October, the demand just keeps going up and up.

Demand for the unusual pet soared after photographer Roy Daines captured an image of the lizard while on holiday in Kenya.
He said: ‘I was relaxing around the lodge pool, when the lizard appeared out from behind a wall surrounding the terrace I was bathing on.

‘I was absolutely fascinated by him, I have never seen anything like it before.

Uncanny resemblance: The African lizard resembles Spider-Man with its distinctive red and blue markings

‘His colourings were very bright making him look like he was dressed in a suit – crawling around on the rock made him look exactly like Spider-Man.’

Rich Nunn, of Nostalgia and Comics in Birmingham said that the resemblance to the Marvel superhero was amazing.
He said: ‘The colouring is unbelievably similar, especially in the chest arms and legs.

‘I am sure there would be lots of comic fans who would want a lizard like this, because it looks so much like Spider-Man.’

From Daily Mail

Hundreds of sand lizards released

Hundreds of rare sand lizards are being released into the wild at locations in England and Wales from where they had previously disappeared.

They will be reintroduced at five sites in Surrey, Dorset and mid-Wales.

The sand lizards were bred in captivity so they could be released into the wild

The sand lizard was once a common sight across heathland, but the gradual destruction of its habitats has led to its extinction in many places.

Some 400 of the creatures would be set free within a fortnight, the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation group said.

The first release of about 80 two-inch-long baby lizards, reared in special hatcheries, will take place at a National Trust nature reserve in Surrey on Thursday.

According to the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation group (Arc), the lizard was lost altogether from a number of counties including Kent, Sussex, Cornwall, Cheshire and north and west Wales.

More than 90% of suitable habitat has also vanished from Surrey, Merseyside and Dorset.

Reptiles and amphibians are coming under pressure from an increasing number of factors including habitat loss, disease and a future of climate change Dr Tom Tew, Natural England

Frogs, toads, newts, lizards and snakes have all been affected by the loss of their habitats, often because of changes to agricultural practice, the planting of forests and building developments.

But Arc, formed by the merger of Froglife and the Herpetological Conservation Trust charities, said the animals and their habitats were now protected by law.

Nick Moulton, of Arc, said: “It’s great to see them going back, now safely protected, where they belong.”

The reintroductions were part of efforts to “turn back the clock on amphibian and reptile declines” in Britain, a statement from Arc added.

‘Reverse the decline’

The young lizards were bred in captivity at locations that include the zoos at Chester and Marwell, and also specially modified back gardens.

The breeders minimised contact with the reptiles to prevent them becoming too tame, which would leave them at risk of being eaten in the wild by their main predator, the smooth snake.

The reintroduction of the sand lizards is part of a 133-point action plan, intended to reverse the decline of the UK’s frogs, toads, lizards and snakes.

The plan includes research, monitoring species and encouraging land-owners to create habitats such as ponds to help wildlife flourish.

Dr Tom Tew, chief scientist at Natural England, the government’s conservation agency, said: “Reptiles and amphibians are coming under pressure from an increasing number of factors including habitat loss, disease and a future of climate change.

“This important reintroduction programme is an example of the action that must be taken to reverse the decline in England’s biodiversity and to conserve the habitats that our unique wildlife relies upon.”

From BBC NEWS.

It’s a leap, but frogs find home in elephant dung.

Study of ‘ecosystem engineers’ sees cheap pachyderm shelters piling up.

One species of frog found in a pile of Asian elephant dung. Photo: Ahimsa Campos-arceiz / livescience.com

They may not be the best-smelling homes, but Asian elephant dung piles provide certain frog species with shelter, one researcher has found.

Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz of the University of Tokyo found the dung-dwelling frogs in Sri Lanka’s Bundala National Park, while searching for signs that Asian elephants acted as ecosystem engineers in their environments.

Ecosystem engineers are “organisms capable of controlling the availability of resources for other organisms by modifying the physical environment,” Campos-Arceiz said. The beaver is probably the most well-known example of an ecosystem engineer, Campos-Arceiz said. “The construction of their dams modifies the landscape, creating a new type of ecosystem.”

Big animals, such as elephants, are particularly good at ecosystem engineering, because they can have such a proportionately large impact on their environment, Campos-Arceiz said.

Previous studies have shown that African savanna elephants (Loxodonta Africana) impacted their ecosystem by creating refuges for tree-dwelling lizards — when the elephants broke off twigs and branches while feeding, they left behind crevices in the trees. The research showed that lizard communities were more diverse in places where elephants also lived.

Campos-Arceiz wondered if Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) might have a similar impact on their ecosystems.

During August 2008, Campos-Arceiz was in Bundala National Park inspecting Asian elephant dung piles looking for seeds (the feces can act as a nutrient source for plants and fungi, which will germinate and grow there). Instead, he found an amphibious surprise: six frogs representing three different species (Microhyla ornata, Microhyla rubra and Spaerotheca sp.) in five dung piles.

“I was looking for seeds in the dung — and was ready for some insects and other invertebrates. But I never thought about a vertebrate like a frog staying inside of the dung,” Campos-Arceiz told LiveScience.

An alternative habitat
Accompanying the frogs in the dung piles were beetles, termites, ants, spiders, scorpions, centipedes and crickets, “suggesting that a dung pile can become a small ecosystem of its own,” Campos-Arceiz wrote in the study, titled “S*** Happens (to be Useful)! Use of Elephant Dung as Habitat by Amphibians,” detailed in the journal Biotropica.

“I don’t really remember how it came up, but it happened as soon as I decided to write a paper. I created a folder in my computer called ‘S*** Happens!’ and this project name made the work funnier for me,” Campos-Arceiz said.

The frogs Campos-Arceiz found live among the leaf litter on the ground. But that litter can be scarce in the dry season (when Campos-Arceiz was visiting), so he suspects the dung may provide an alternative habitat for the frogs.

Campos-Arceiz suspects that Asian elephants may act as ecosystem engineers in their environment in other ways as well.

From msnbc

I´ve got eggs coocking!

It has been well over 15 years since I tried to hatch snake-egg the last time, but I am going to give it a go this year again. Got eggs from one of the most beautiful Cloubrids in Europe, the Leopardsnake Zamenis situla. This species is known to have rather small numbers of eggs in their clutches, usually about 2-5 eggs/clutch. This female is really large, about 120 centimeters compared to the normal size around 100 centimeters, and the clutchsize for her 2 years in a row is 10 eggs! The incubationtime is somewhere between 60 – 80 days, depending on the temperature.

Some pictures:

Egg-sizes ranging from the largest: 45 x 25 mm´s to the smallest: 37 x 27 mm´s.

 

Z. situla eggs.

The proud mom..

I also got some eggs from Aegean four-lined snake, Elaphe quatuorlineata muenteri, witch is the smaller islandform. The inland form reaches about 180 centimeters, but this subspecies becomes only about 120 – 130 centimeters in length.

I didn´t expect any eggs from the pair I keep, as I thought that they needed another year of growing first. As they are quite shy, I don´t see them more then about 10 seconds a week, I was surprised to see that the female was really fat. I put in a box with Sphagnum-moss in their terrarium, and it took only about an hour for her to enter the box and start digging around.

Since it was quite late, I decided to leave her for the night, and lookid in the box when I got home from work the following afternoon. And what do you know.. 4 eggs in the moss.

Some pictures:

Eggsize ranging from the largest at 77 x 22 mm´s to the smallest at 60 x 25 mm´s.

Elaphe quatuorlineata muenteri eggs.

The female, photographed late 2008.

The incubator.

Incubator.

 

More info and updates on Terrarium Morbidum forum (nonvenomous snakes section).

The awaitening…

The viperbabys that I am waiting for..

But I really think that they are coming soon because the notorious feeder a.k.a the yellowish V. a. ammodytes refused food at yesterdays feeding. A good sign..
She still looks like she ate recently, and didn´t  take a dump since May..
I am going to enjoy to see what the small ones will look like, as the mom is yellowish / orangeish in colours and the male is the “Zokadelic”-male. I really, really hope that there is at least one female that looks “Zokadelic” too, so I can keep it for future breedings. Will probably keep a male or two too, if they are “Zokadelic”´s.

The gravid V. renardi female is hissing loudly and striking at me everytime I show my face now, but she did take a little mouse yesterday to my surprise.. She´s also very large now..
I have to keep at least 2.2 from these too, as the parents are very old, at least 10 years old, possible allmost 15.
As far as I know, nobody have had young ones from this species in Sweden before. Can I be the first??
Good that I have lots of small crickets at home now, to feed the small ones with.

I have been trying to take decent pictures of the both gravid females, but it´s really hard, as they don´t show themselves as much as they usually do. Will continue trying though..

This week, or next, they will all arrive I think… Looking in the terrariums every day, up to three times now..

The eggs from the Z. situla..

You might remember this story: http://terrariummorbidum.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/409/

It will not happend again this year! The large female is clearly gravid, and shed her skin last week, so there should be eggs this week or in the beginning of next. I am just hoping that there is some lifes inside the eggs..

I have already prepared a hatchingmachine for the eggs, and trimmed it to keep the temperature at ~25,5 degrees C. Of course there will be some fluctuations in the temperature, but I am hoping that it will stay around 24,0 – 26,5 degrees C.
I am using a “Scherpner´s”-modell of hatcher ( wet-hatcher with a couple of wallbricks at the bottom with an eggbox ontop ) , and a immersion heater <– right word? for aquariums. The hatcher is in my garage, just to keep the risk of overheating the hatcher and the eggs at a minimum, as the garage don´t have windows and is a bit cooler then my little reptilehouse.

Would really be fun to hatch some eggs now, as I haven´t done it for years..

Second European Bombina Song Contest

Following the success of the 2007 “European Bombina Song Contest”, the LIFE-Bombina project (LIFE 04 NAT/DE/000028) has announced a second edition for 2009.

On the 10th May, live recordings of different populations of B. bombina will be made in ponds in Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Latvia and presented on the project website, where the public will be able to vote for thir favourite ‘songs’ (in a similar fashion to the popular, televised Eurovision Song Contest). Voting will possible either on the website and also on-site.

A sophisticated technical set up had to be developed in order to allow the recording and transfer of sound files from the festival locations.

The 2007 event received widespread media coverage in the participating countries, as well as elsewhere in Europe, and was reported on the main national TV news in Sweden, which won the first round.

More details on the LIFE-Bombina website. Listen to the Participants of the 2007 edition.

From Environment-LIFE